


At The End Of It All

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes's Notebooks, Bucky Barnes's Plums, Captain America: The First Avenger, Fix-It, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Letter form, Letters From War, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Other, POV First Person, Pining Bucky Barnes, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and inserting stucky throughout, another 'Bucky writes Steve letters' fic, basically we're going through the cap trilogy with the relevant avengers movies in-between, in the sense that it has a happy Stucky ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 04:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9583397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: Hopefully you’ll never have to read this, but if you do, I want you to know that I volunteered because I didn’t want you to. I’m thinking about it now and it doesn’t make sense, that logic, because I know you, but I think I was thinking that maybe you’d want to keep an eye on the city for me. And who knows, maybe you do. Maybe you are. I hope you are.I hope you’re eating, too. I realize now that that really maybe wasn’t the best thought out plan, because there wasn’t much in the pantry when I left, but you gotta know I didn’t abandon you. I’m doing well here, I’m being useful like you know I always wanted. Maybe that’s another reason why I left.I know I said that to you, “Right, you’ve got nothing to prove”, but it’s not just you.And Stevie, if you’re making that face you make when you don’t think I remember things, I just want you to know I remember every word I’ve ever said to you._______________A story told in letters, with the writer being established at the beginning of each chapter. You may've come across these works as part of a series; I've decided to change them into a single story so as to keep them in one place.





	1. The Beginning and End of Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's "if I die in combat" letters from The First Avenger.

____________

 

[DECLASSIFIED—JAMES BUCHANAN "BUCKY" BARNES] 

____________

 

Hopefully you’ll never have to read this, but if you do, I want you to know that I volunteered because I didn’t want you to. I’m thinking about it now and it doesn’t make sense, that logic, because I know you, but I think I was thinking that maybe you’d want to keep an eye on the city for me. And who knows, maybe you do. Maybe you are. I hope you are.

I hope you’re eating, too. I realize now that that really maybe wasn’t the best thought out plan, because there wasn’t much in the pantry when I left, but you gotta know I didn’t abandon you. I’m doing well here, I’m being useful like you know I always wanted. Maybe that’s another reason why I left.

I know I said that to you, “Right, you’ve got nothing to prove”, but it’s not just you.

And Stevie, if you’re making that face you make when you don’t think I remember things, I just want you to know I remember every word I’ve ever said to you.

______

 

Just wanted to say that all the boys here are getting a kick out of that one time you decided to fight an alley cat that was picking on a different cat, you remember that? I swear they’re all in love with you, the cats and the boys. We’re all fools for you. Myself more than most.

______

 

I had a dream last night that you were drawing me again. Or I’m pretty sure it was a dream; otherwise I fell right into last summer when I fell asleep, and I think I’d know if I had. Though I guess to be fair, I didn’t know when Dot was trying to talk me up, so there’s that. I’ve gotten more observant since then, though.

But in my dream—did you feel it? That you were in my dream? One of the guys here, his name’s Gabe, he thinks that if you’re in someone’s dream you can tell—in my dream you had your beat up sketchbook open on your knee and we were on the fire escape that one summer that made Brooklyn feel like it was sleeping heavy even in the daylight, and I could see you just barely out of the corner of my eye, because you had me facing out toward the alley because you wanted to practice sketching profiles.

And in my dream you poked your tongue out just barely, the way you do when you’re really concentrating, and it made me feel a little self-conscious, the way you were looking at me. You were looking like you were looking, or looking like you were seeing. You always look at me like you see me, or like you’re trying to—have you gotten those glasses yet? I think they might really help—and no one else ever does.

Sometimes I think you’re the reason I’m visible, because you see me. You’re the reason I believe I’m real.

______

 

I’m looking back at what I’ve written so far and it’s funny to see because I know I wrote it, but I haven’t had much time to keep writing to you so it’s sort of like reading it for the first time every time I look at it. I’ve been here for maybe three weeks or so by now. What I mean is, it’s funny because it looks like I’m using more than one color pen, but really it’s just because the older ones dried faster.

I just realized, if you read this, it’s gonna be filled with me jabbering on about different pen types instead of giving you any actual relief when I’m dead. Is that crude to say of me, or I guess insensitive to say of me? Should I say when I’m buried, or I remember when my pa died they said we lost him, when actually he went somewhere we couldn’t pull him back from.

That’s how I think I want you to think of me, when you get this. It’s not that you lost me, because you won’t have lost me, not ever. Maybe I’ll haunt you, just so that’s even more true; you’ll be sick of me at the end of it all. But what I meant was, you won’t have lost me. I’ll just be further along, is all. Like when we decided to sail our toy boats that one time, remember? And yours went further out than we planned and we couldn’t get it back without jumping into the water and dragging it back to us.

Except don’t, I’m begging you, don’t jump in after me. Not on purpose, okay? If you get this, promise me that.

This is a really depressing addition, huh. We lost someone today, is why. Buried him just before dinner.

But he wouldn’t want whoever his letter’s going to to jump in after him, the same as I don’t want you to. So don’t, Stevie; that’s the kind of splash that’d give you a cold.

Now I’m looking back at that and that doesn’t really make sense, does it? I’m gonna leave it. You always used to think I was funny when I got to this kind of sleep exhaustion, after all.

______

 

Dernier—that’s Jacques, he’s our Frenchman; been teaching me how to flirt in French, maybe I’ll show you someday—told us today about his girl back home. Madeleine, he says her name is. That’s who he’s writing to. One of the boys asked him what he missed most about her and he said all of her and that he couldn’t pick and I’m thinking about how that’s how I feel about you too. There’s too much of you to pick from, Stevie.

But he’s told us that he’s starting each letter with a confession, like what he thought when they first met, when he knew he loved her, all that kind of sappy thing that would make a great war film, probably; you know, boy volunteers and leaves behind a sweetheart, boy sends love letters back every month or earlier, if he can manage it.

So I started thinking, what would I tell you?

And I’m thinking that what I’d tell you is, always. There are theories about soulmates and that kind of thing, but I never really believed it until I met you. I like the string one the best. That there’s something connecting us together, right here on my heart; I believe that one the most. You’ll always be written here on my heart.

I’d tell you that but it’s not what you’re gonna want to hear, and I know that. You’d say, frowning in that way you do when I’m saying something you disagree with on a fundamental level, you’d say, _Buck, that can’t possibly be true,_ except now I’m thinking about it I don’t know if you’d be objecting to the theory or that you’re mine. I get that, I do; I wouldn’t’ve believed it either, but even over here I can feel you over there. We’re connected, you and I, and I won’t let us become a tragedy. ‘Specially not you. You look like a good-sized tragedy could sit on you and it’d squash you flat.

I’d tell you that, but it’s not what you’re gonna want to hear when I’m gone, so I’m sorry for having written it down. But what I’m thinking is how much greater the tragedy would be if I didn’t say it. And I’m sorry if that’s me making myself out to be more important than I am to you, but that’s what I’m thinking.

______

 

We went on a raiding party today and the fact that we call it a party makes me wonder if we’re always a little desperate to rewrite exactly what it is that we’re doing. I know they mean “party” as in to say “group”, but whenever I hear  “party” out here I think about our birthday that one year we didn’t have enough money to celebrate both of them separately so we celebrated both on one day in May—I think the seventh, right?—and somehow you were charming for once and got our landlady to give us extra sugar for the cakes. Except the sugar wasn’t enough, so it tasted funny but it had been so long since we’d had cake that it was the best thing we’d ever tasted.

I’m realizing that it’s dumb to joke in this, because what if you’re reading it and I’m actually dead? So I was kidding when I said you were charming for once. You’re always charming, especially to me, more so when we need more sugar for our cake.

But I was saying about rewriting things: I think it’s a way to distance ourselves from everything. That’s probably something, at least, of what it is.

______

 

I love you so much, d’you know that? You’re the sweetest most annoying person I know

and always so argumentative and tiny

i mean not tiny. But maybe scrawny, because you are a little bit, aren’t you?

Might be a little drunk or a lot right now, but what I can tell from this is that it’s all true, and that I’m missing you a lot

maybe you’re wondering why I’m drunk it’s because we’re going on a mission tomorrow against this top secret branch of the Nazis and we’re wanting to do what we can to remember that we’ve got our bodies still

it could maybe be more because Dum Dum kept raising toasts, but I can’t think straight enough to tell. I can think straight enough to tell that I’m missing you a lot. You fit right under my arm in the best way, like that time before I left and you were fighting that idiot behind the cinema? We fit real nice then.

But Stevie stevie I’m thinking now that I could die tomorrow and I want you to know that I know this is illegal, what I’m feeling, or i think probably it is; I’ll be honest, I didn’t know all of what I’m feeling until now that I’m feeling it, and by right now I’m not sober enough to think straight

but I think I’m saying that I know I shouldn’t feel the way I do, and I know your God wouldn’t like it, but I’m saying that I’d be willing to burn for you

I think I’ve always been willing to burn for you

______

 

Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038 Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes 32557038

______

 

I’m not sure of much anymore but I’m sure of you, always have been and damned am definitely more sure now. And I’m sure that you’ll never read this, not ever, because I don’t wanna see the way you look when you feel for certain that you never felt the same way.

Because I see the way you see her, and the way she sees you, and you’ve never seen me that way. You’re the reason I think I’m real, I wrote that early, didn’t I? Maybe you need to be with someone who sees herself real without needing anyone else to make her real. Maybe you need to be with a ‘her’, and I’m not sure of much anymore but I’m sure I’m not a ‘her’.

I’m picturing your babies now, and I wonder how it’d work with the serum in you? Because it’d be a shame if the you I knew for most of my life never had any kids, not that the you you are now is any lesser.

I’m not writing anything that makes sense anymore. My brain doesn’t feel like a welcoming environment anymore; I have to fight my way out of bed in the mornings, you can ask Gabe of that.

______

 

Do I have to pick someone new to write to? I know how you like picking fights; I feel like there’s no way we’re both gonna make it out of this okay. I’m glad you’ve been eating, though.

______

 

I asked you today if you’re writing to someone back home and the look you gave me is the same as the one you gave when someone said should move to New Jersey, you and I. It’s the one that makes you look like you’re seeing two noses on whoever’s speaking, like maybe they’re speaking in a rational voice but something’s very much off.

“Everyone I’ve got back home I have with me here,” is what you say when I asked. And that makes sense, it really does. I wish it didn’t, though. I think maybe it’d help you to write down what you’re thinking. It’s helped me, anyway.

______

 

Your way to write down your feelings, I came across it today after I finished moving my stuff into your tent, and Steve I almost want to keel over now so you could know how much I love all of it.

I’d just tell you, but that sounds like I was going through your stuff when in reality your sketchbook was open on your bed.

This is funny to me; if I’m dead when you’re reading this, I’m defending myself from the grave here. War does strange things to your sense of humor.

But it’s beautiful, your feelings. You’ve got Dum Dum there coming out of an oak tree, I think it is, and there’s Dernier with France giving him flowers and Gabe swimming in his coffee and Morita using magic sparkles to cook all of our rations into something edible. You can tell, in the strokes of your pencil, what you’re feeling.

Earlier in the book it’s feeble, unsure. But as the book fills up your lines become stronger and confident, sure of their place on the page. Nothing shies away from the emptiness of the page anymore.

It’s like you. That’s what I mean when I say you’re writing out your feelings. I can tell how sure you are of yourself when I look at your sketchbook.

I wanna say Stevie that the monkey on the unicycle breaks my heart, right where I think our string pulls us together. It hurts that you felt like that. You’re meant for more than that.

______

 

Stevie sometimes I just want to go back home. I’m worried what our city’s getting up to, what with you and I both being here. It’s loud and busy and hungry. Who’s feeding it? and what’re those stray cats going to do without you there to defend them?

I can’t help thinking that maybe we are gonna be a tragedy after all. I love that you’re here, but they did something to me back there and I can’t get it out of my head. Especially seeing you every night; you deserve better than me, and I know that and have for a while, but now seeing you at night makes it feel like I’m ruining you just by being here in the same place as you at night.

That night in the bar? She likes you, Stevie. Do something about it, why don’t you? I think maybe it’ll help me, in the end.

I just don’t know. I feel like there are so many lifetimes where we’ve loved and been loved by each other, and I know I should be grateful with the love I’ve gotten from you. But since you saved me this most recent time, I’ve been wanting so much more from you. More than usual.

I don’t like it; I feel scraped on the inside. It’s like the sound your mixing palette makes, the way your mixing makes the canvas sound like it’s wood. That’s what it’s like inside of me. You deserve someone who’s filled up inside.

______

 

You’re sketching me now the way you did in my dream, except this time we’re in our tent and the only light is the lantern that should probably be out by now and it’s colder by far than it was in my dream. It feels like the night’s clawing its way along my arms as I’m writing this.

I want to see what I look like in your hands, in both ways of the phrase. Maybe that’s not what you want to hear now, especially if I’m gone, but it’s how I’m feeling right now and if I can’t be honest as a dead man, when can I?

I wish I knew how to sketch as well as you deserve to be sketched. I’d show you how I feel about you in every stroke of my pencil. I’d sketch you in words, but it’s not the same, and we both know I don’t think I have the vocabulary for that.

You’re asking me something. You’re asking if I want to see what you’ve drawn, and I do, so I’m gonna write this down and look.

______

 

I think even if I apologized for every day that you outlived me it still wouldn’t be enough, so I'll just write it here for you to look at when you’re ready to:

I’m so, so sorry I misread your drawing and kissed you. I thought you were saying what you weren’t and then you drew back and before I could explain Jim came in and called us for that meeting, and now we’re going to go take down HYDRA once and for all, or at least that we’re going to go get the doctor, so I guess this could be my last letter. I don't think it will be, but. It's high stakes tomorrow, so just to be safe.

I still think maybe we’re soulmates, Stevie. But I’m sorry for last night. You said earlier today that it was okay, but I’m going to be sorry about it forever, probably, so it’s really only fitting that this is the maybe last thing I’m writing here.

I said that I thought there were many lifetimes when we’ve been in love with each other, or it feels like that’s the case, but I guess I didn’t realize there were many lifetimes when we haven’t been the right person for each other. I do still think maybe we’re soulmates, but maybe that’s just that we’re friendly soulmates.

No, I don’t believe that. I think I was hoping that writing it down would convince me that I meant it. Some part of me has always and will always love you, Steve. Every part of you, from your cowlick that’s still there even with the serum to the fact that you still stuff your shoes with newspapers to the way your knuckles bruise when you’ve been fighting for something. Every part of you. There’s too much of you to pick from, is what it is.

Do you remember that book that came out a few years after we were born? The one by Fitzgerald? Well, I read it before I came over here and then everything else by him that I could get my hands on—and we both know I mean, everything else by him that I could steal, because we didn’t have money to spend on books—and I came across this scrap that he wrote and memorized it, because it’s perfect for how I feel about you.

What he said was, “I love her and it is the beginning and end of everything,” and Stevie, that’s the truest thing as near as I can figure to the story of you and me. I love you, and it is the beginning and end of everything. If I know nothing else, it is that.

So this is where I’ll stop for tonight. Maybe I’ll write again, maybe I won’t; that all depends on the train tomorrow, I guess. But for tonight I’ll hug you goodnight and maybe we’ll laugh a little, and if that’s all of you I can have, I’ll take it. It’s all I need, after all. It’s the beginning and end of everything, and we’ve made it this far.

____________

 

[END FILE] 

____________

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Soldat?"_   
>  _"Ya gotov otvechat."_


	2. Shadows of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's notebook after Bucky fell.

____________

 

[DECLASSIFIED—STEVEN GRANT ROGERS] 

____________

 

They gave me your letters after we got back from the train.

I’ve never wanted to be drunk until now. The thing they didn’t tell me, after the serum, was that it does something to my cells, repairs them at a faster rate than is typical, so now I can’t even forget what happened. I see it every moment, Buck. I’m seeing it now.

______

 

I did that face a lot, didn’t I? The one where I look like I’m disagreeing with you? You mention it in your letter. I didn’t mean it, most of the time.

Peggy came and found me last night. You wouldn’t’ve liked to see me like that, snot-nosed and red-eyed from crying about you. You’d’ve said something about “Awh, c’mon Steve” or “didn’t realize you cared so much” and then you would’ve slung your arm around me like you’re talking about, after that fight in the alley. I miss that. I’d be too tall for it now, anyhow.

______

 

I don’t know where to put your letters. They’re in my sketchbook right next to the last sketch I did of you.

The last one where you were in front of me, anyway; I keep trying to catch you here in these pages, but my hand’s too shaky and they’re all just shadows of you.

______

 

Dum Dum patted my shoulder today, so I guess you can see how cut up I am if he’s trying to give me comfort.

We couldn’t find you after the fall, so today we’ve burned some of your uniform. Not a lot; your jacket and cap, the cap you hated because it mussed your hair. They had me go through your things and tell them what I wanted kept and what would be good to burn, and I gave them the hat without hesitation. Figured you wouldn’t mind.

Thought about donating one of my sketches to the cause, but there’s no way. I don’t have enough pictures of you as it is.

______

 

I keep waking up in the middle of the night convinced that you’re ducking back in after “using the facilities”, as you’d say.

Maybe you’re here and I just can’t see you. You wrote about wanting to haunt me in your letter if you died, but Buck I couldn’t be sick of you if you tried.

______

 

I wish I’d been writing to you when everything was happier, like maybe back earlier when we were both home. Maybe like when we were younger, just meeting for the first time.

Do you remember

Well. I guess I can’t use that, can I?

I remember that first time I saw you. It was significant because I remember I couldn’t really see you, because my eyes were swollen almost shut. But you took care of the boys who were kicking me and we fit together like how you said we did, and you met my ma and it felt like the world was ours.

See because I thought there was a chance I’d die coming over here, that maybe we both would, but after finding you again that first time it felt like we could do anything like we used to be able to. It felt like the way it did when you got us enough apples that one time to last us a week and then still enough for apple pie. It felt like we were immortal in that moment, Bucky. I wish I didn’t know how untrue that was.

______

 

It’s hard to believe it’s only been two days. I said I was waking up in the middle of the night, but now I’m pretty sure they keep letting me sleep and only wake me up for meals. So I’ve really just been waking up in the middle of the day and going back to sleep.

Haven’t been sleeping well. You remember when I was sick that first time, when my ma passed away? I kept waking up and sleeping and waking up and tossing and turning, that’s what it’s been like.

You know what? This is what I should’ve said to you when you were here, in that moment between us kissing and Jim walking in. I think I was about to say but I was surprised, and then afterward it seemed like you didn’t want to hear it, so I kept it to myself. But what I’m thinking is, maybe I wasn’t made to survive without you. I can live without you, if I try; but that’s the difference between breathing and having a beating heart, and then having someone that gives you something to survive for. You were the reason why I woke up in the morning while you were gone.

You were the reason at Camp Lehigh too, the most important one. I never expected to be assigned to your unit, or to run into you ever over here. But I think part of me thought I would, or hoped I would.

It’s like the love story you’re talking about, that you enlisted and I followed in my own way to get here. They’d write us a happy ending and you’d kiss me in our tent and I wouldn’t pull away.

That’s the story that plays those few minutes I can fall asleep. That we’re happy and you’re kissing me and I don’t pull away.

______

 

It’s still the same day. They’ve been letting me alone for awhile, which is nice for my sleep but leaves me alone with my head and my thoughts of you, and neither of those things are very nice to me right now.

I’ve been holding onto your letters. I sleep with my sketchbook on my chest now. To lose it would hurt worse than losing an arm or leg.

But I’ve been rereading them too, and you talk about them doing something to you and all I’ve got right now is rage, the blinding kind Ma warned me against. The idea of them hurting you is enough that they should wish they’d never even thought to touch you.

There’s one part of your letter where you’re listing your name and rank and serial over and over, and I’m thinking about your soulmate idea and how you deserve better than me. I didn’t even know until I got there that they had you.

______

 

We just had our debrief. We’re gonna go to Schmidt’s lab and ambush him and I’m sending him straight to hell for everything they did to you too. I don’t even know if I care if I get caught in the fire. I’d burn for you, too. Always will.

Peggy asked me when she found me in the bar who I was writing to and I told her you and she’s been looking at me with a sad expression ever since. I think she’s worried that I’m talking to ghosts more than I’m talking to people. I think she’s worried I’m going to try and deliver this to you myself. Maybe I should be scared, but I don’t think she’s wrong, and I’m not.

I’m thinking about the train and it’s just hit me how cruel it was, that you said you were with me to the end of the line and we never made it there. You remember we talked about symbolism in English class? It hurts that we never made it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want my last words to be. I know I don’t have a say in them really, not tomorrow if something happens, but I have control over my last written words. So I think I’m gonna do what you said Dernier does, the realization thing. You won’t ever read this so it’s just going to be for me and for whoever finds this when I’m gone. What I’d tell you if you were here.

So what I’d tell you if you were here, and what I want them to know, is that you were right about the drawing. And I think you’re a part of me, now. Some part of you lives in my heart, right where you’re saying our string is. And I think maybe I can feel it now, too.

I’m not making sense. I love you, is what I’m meaning. Always will. Part of you lives in my heart.

But I’m thinking too, I’m just realizing that pictures can be words too, in a sense. And I’ve always been better with drawings. So I think that’s how I’ll end this letter, because one way or another it’s over tomorrow. I won’t let it be anything but over.

So maybe they’ll see, when they read this, if I’m gone—maybe they’ll see what I felt for you.

____________

 

[END FILE] 

____________

 

I’ve been awake for ten days. They gave me everything they had of us, all your letters, and even though they say it’s been 70 years I still remember everything you wrote.

It’s a different world, Bucky. There’s so much I don’t know, even ten days later, and really mostly what I’m thinking is that I shouldn’t be in a world where you’re not alive. But the city’s still the same, even if I’m not; it’s as loud and busy and hungry as you said it was.

70 years. I lost 70 years.

I thought I'd see you, when I woke up. 

______

 

The worst of all of this is I thought it was over. We fought for the Tesseract the last time I wrote to you (are you haunting me? I feel something weighing on my shoulders) and I thought it was gone. When I crashed that plane I did so thinking it was gone and that I’d done something to be satisfied with. I was ready for it to be done. I wanted to see you again.

I’m so tired, Buck. I can’t fall asleep as easily anymore—I’ve had my fill of sleeping—but I’m tired of how loud this world has grown. They don’t remember that I’m older than my bones.

They gave me my sketchbook back when they pulled me out, but I can’t remember how you look anymore. There’s an exhibit of us all in the museum, but they don’t have the you I remember. The you I remember smiles at stupid jokes and drags us to amusement parks and gets us into ball games for free. You’re too stoic in those pictures. And all of the articles are written in the past tense.

______

 

It’s times after I go on assignment that I wonder what you’d think of it all, all the secrecy and uniforms and all that. I think you’d be good at it, if you were here. You were always the observant one.

There’s too much intrigue for me. Too much politics. It feels like the world grew murkier in the years we’ve been gone; if I were drawing it, it’d be shades of dark, dark charcoal. I don’t ever know who I’m working with, not really; they’re all super-spies and assassins, cover upon cover upon lie upon deceit. Used to be, if something was wrong, I knew who was right by who condemned it. Now I think I might working for the ones who support it, and I don’t know what to do.

______

 

You know, I thought maybe someday this would weigh on me less since I’ve woken up. It doesn’t. It’s been a week or so since I wrote that and a month of me being unfrozen and I don’t think it’ll go away. It’s only been that month, but it feels the way it did when I fell ill that one time, and we both know that I didn’t really fully recover from that before the serum. There’s a hollowness to my chest and the sense that it’s overfull and I don’t see how that can be, not really.

Peggy and I talked today and she said something about having lived her life and her regret that I didn’t get mine. It’s strange to think about, because I think I would’ve married her if I didn’t know you felt how you did about me. I’m not in the habit of wishing for impossible things, but the one time it counted most I didn’t have to.

You feeling the same way was always an impossibility for me. I didn’t think I’d ever be so lucky. “The beginning and end of everything,” you said. Well. Standing at the end of it all, I think that’s all there is to say.

____________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Bucky?"_   
> _"Who the hell is Bucky?"_


	3. What I'm Sure Of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's notebook after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

____________

 

You’re alive

There are so many things I want to say to you right now, but I can’t find them in my brain to write them; as soon as I find them, they float away again because all there is in my brain is

You’re alive you’re alive you’re alive

You remembered me

______

 

It’s as though I’ve regained a piece of my soul. You, alive; an impossibility I never dreamed to hope for.

It’s not the same, never will be. But I know inside the Winter Soldier is you. You remembered me, I’m sure of it. You knew me. I saw it in your eyes.

______

 

Nat’s given me your file. After she uploaded everything SHIELD kept hidden to the world, it blew a lot of what we thought and what we knew about you wide open; those cases with a magic bullet, the ones where there was only the briefest glance of an elbow, if that; you’re not careless. But her own magic bullet was that computer and that ‘upload’ button and her own fearlessness, and all those together made a convincing argument for those she pressed about you to tell her what they knew.

We don’t have much. I’m saying ‘we’ because Sam’s helping me look. Hopefully one day you’ll meet, and it won’t end in a fight.

I don’t have much of you, Buck. But I’m not letting go of what I’ve got. You’re out there, somewhere, and I’m coming for you.

You’re alive, and I’m coming for you.

______

 

(you don’t have much of you, either.)

______

 

There hasn’t been a sighting of you since D.C., that time after the Potomac. You disappeared and it’s like someone’s pulled you behind a curtain; I know you’re there, I can see you out there somewhere, but I can’t see you. It feels like I’m blind and stumbling after you, like that time you convinced me to spend some of our money at some dive by the docks, you remember? Everything's hazy and I'm sure of nothing but the fact that you're somewhere in front of me.

Or I guess I hope you will remember, someday. I hope soon.

______

 

Sam has me do this exercise most days, the ones where he thinks I’m most obsessive and stressed, where I do as many pushups as I can and list two positive things for each pushup. I think he thinks it’s gonna wear me out somehow, but I can do pushups all day, all told.

It helps sometimes but usually I run out of positives before I get exhausted. He says it works best for people who aren’t supersoldiers, but it is what it is.

I’m saying this because today we got a lead on you, somewhere in Europe. Nat’s source is a little fuzzy on the details (she says he got knocked around a lot by the KGB) but he identified your arm, says his agents have seen you around before and that’s how he remembers you.

He didn’t say which side his agents saw you on, so I’m trying to ignore that.

But that’s what I said today, that over and over and the July Fourth boxers Nat got me for my birthday. I think she was kidding. I can’t always tell.

I can tell with you. You’re another thing I listed today. You always are.

______

 

You’re alive. You’re out there breathing the same air as me somewhere. The fact of that is amazing to me. Your lungs are working and your body’s keeping you alive, somewhere out there. You alive, James Buchanan Barnes is alive. 

______

 

You’re alive and out there and I’m here, always here, and I don’t hate it, I mean that, but there are some things that’re worth more than the Avengers, and you’re one of them.

When I’m being selfish I think about making finding you a training exercise. But there are people you don’t want finding you, and heavily armed ‘enhanced individuals’ (Fury’s words, not mine) tend to draw a lot of attention. We’ve done a few classes on The Fundamental Art of Disguise—Tony names the courses—and all we’ve got is ball caps and sunglasses, but there aren’t enough for everyone, so it wouldn’t really work too well.

I’m being selfish. I know that. Sam reminds me that we’re doing good work here, that the Avengers need to practice their skills and he’s right, and he’s right that maybe you don’t want to be found, and Bucky I can’t leave and fly off to Europe to find you, not on the word of an unreliable triple agent and not when this is important too. I don’t think there’ll be a day when this isn’t important and I know there’ll never be a day when you’re not important and the fact of it all tears something in my chest when I think about it. And I’m scared that the tear is the string you’re talking about. I won’t lose you.

______

 

I wonder what they’d say, back then, if they knew I’m not as star-spangled anymore and that I definitely don’t have a solid plan about anything. I was thinking about you in the bar after I found you, how you asked me if I’m keeping the outfit and how I probably should’ve realized then how you were feeling, and it reminded me of that song we’d do. You know, “The Star-Spangled Man With A Plan” (I got real lucky you never teased me about that. Never would’ve lived it down). But my plans are usually thought up on the spot, and they’re always for you. You’re my constant through everything.

There was a time when, if I said something sappy like that, you'd punch me on the arm, never mind that I was always smaller than you and that "a breeze could push me over". Maybe there's still a time when I say something like that and you smile a little, like you used to. There are faces in my sketchbook that I know are yours, but it's such a different thing to see a smile in front of you. These versions of you are charcoal. The real you, you're real and more than anything I can draw in my book.

______

 

If you wanted to be found you would be. We’re not hard to find.

This is a bad day, but I can’t fight it off so I’m gonna fall into it instead. You’d be teasing me about something, if we were both in the back then that we knew so well, in order to get my mind off it. It’d be a recruitment thing or a girl thing and it’s funny, looking back on it, because it wasn’t so much a girl thing so much as a you thing. To think we loved each other then and never said anything.

I forget most of the time that it’s different, or not that it’s different but that you might not feel the same way as you did. Now that I’ve read your letters, I can’t think you’d change since then. You're so sure about your heart in those letters. But a world of hell has eaten you and swallowed you up since then.

______

 

Sometimes at night when I can’t sleep because you’re out there somewhere, I think about how much time we could have had. That night in the tent, that can’t’ve been the first time something’s happened or almost happened between us.

No that’s right it wasn’t, I’m remembering now. There was that time when you turned seventeen, I hope you’ll remember someday; when you turned seventeen and that time we got drunk at the docks, those were the same time. That was that shared birthday you talked about in your letter. Your late birthday and my early one.

The day you ‘turned’ seventeen we got drunk at the bar and I think someone was egging you on to fight, or egging me on, and we did. Fought him right by the dock and fell into the water at the end of it. I couldn’t swim then, so you had to jump in but I think you fell instead. I remember you saying something cheesy about falling for me, but it’s a haze after that.

I should’ve told you before all of this. We could’ve been so happy.

______

 

I’m sorry that so much of this has been me complaining when really I should be talking about anything other than that. I don’t know what you’d want to hear though, and most of this is what I’d be saying if you were here right now.

It’s funny how similar this is to writing to you when I thought I’d never see you again, or never see you again until they buried me in that plot where your empty grave is. I can’t see myself giving this to you when or if we finally see each other again, but the habit’s too late to break at this point.

Sam says it’s good to get emotions out. And you’ve always known my mind best of everyone, anyway.

______

 

Sam’s been furthering my musical education and every love song is about you.

I’ve been teaching him and the rest of the team some of the dances you and I never got to do together, that’s what we’ve been doing a lot of the time with our Friday nights. Sometimes, Clint commandeers the TV and remote, and Sam does the popcorn, and during commercial breaks or scary scenes we tell each other jokes or memories. Tony calls it teambuilding, but Nat always says ‘spa night’. She paints my nails every time. It’s never the same every night.

Sam still has some doubts about everything. But some days, Sam puts on his music, and I teach them how to dance like you and I never got to, and I hear everything about us in the music, and I’ve got this grand picture of our future in my head.

______

 

Nat said she was going deep undercover to have something to fall back on (that’s the thing about bringing SHIELD down, her shadows fell with it too) so we hadn’t heard from her in ages, but today she sent a brown package with a single exclamation point on it and of course it’s about you Buck

She says you’ve been seen in Budapest ages ago, but she didn’t say by who; I’m thinking that’s what she’s been doing and that the mail is just late, because she’s telling me as I’m writing that it was at least a few months back. She says you’re good, that you picked up on her tailing you and she didn’t find you again. She says she tried, and I believe her.

She flew back today because Tony’s party is tonight, so this is the first I’m seeing her in ages. We’re going but this is the best lead we’ve had in ages and there’s little stopping me from jumping in the jet and finding you, other than that maybe you won’t want to see me.

I’ve imagined seeing you for the first time again in so many ways. It should be perfect, because you deserve nothing less.

In my mind we’re hugging, at least once, because we’re okay and together. In my mind I’m holding you again and kissing you again the way you kissed me in our tent, except I don’t pull away and we’re both aware, finally, of what it all could mean. In my mind we’re together and we know, finally know what it meant when we said “I love you, I really do” that one birthday when we were drunk, and we’re okay.

In my heart, though. My heart knows it’s been some time and that we’ve changed so much. I’m worried you’ll be blaming me, or worse, blaming yourself, and I’ll let you blame me if it means you’re safe. But Bucky there’s no one who’s less to blame than you.

Nat’s calling me downstairs now. She’s saying something about how I always make everyone late (like it’s my fault they introduced me to hair products when they defrosted me).

Tonight it’s starting. We’re gonna start, tonight. For real. I’ll see if Sam has anything new—he’s ex-military, different contacts and wider circles—and then we’ll catch up afterward. We’re gonna get the jet and come find you, and right now that possibility is so large in my chest that I can’t imagine anything getting in the way of it. And I’ll finally tell you how I’ve felt all these years.

We’ll be together and we’ll make it through everything.

I’m not sure of much, but I’m sure of the inevitability of you and me. We’ll be together, when our hair goes grey and when we look our age and when the world stops turning. That much I’m sure of.

I’m coming for you, that much I’m sure of. I’m sure of you and me.

____________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Captain America...God's righteous man. Pretending you could live without a war."_


	4. There's More to Me (there must be)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's notebook after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

____________

 

Priority

Food (30 weeks)

Water (3 days)

Air (3 minutes)

Shelter (depends on circumstances; freezing weather: ~10 minutes)

Sleep (~11 days)

 

Questions so far

Why.

How do I undo my mind

The man on the bridge

Bucky?

 

Answers so far

HYDRA

?

Steve?

Me?

______

 

HYDRA. Maybe that’s the answer to all of them.

______

 

I’m starting to remember some things.

It’s not a lot, but some. It doesn’t make sense and yet it makes sense and nothing, none of this is something I can feel in my hand. It’s nothing I know for sure.

The trouble is I can’t decide if I want to remember. There’s so much I think I’ve done and there’s no possible way to move past that.

______

 

Feels like this is all there’s ever been, this mess in my mind and the memory of death in my hands. That can’t be true; there’s more to me, there must be.

______

 

Status

Tired (I can feel tiredness)

Hungry (I knew I could feel hunger)

Withdrawal? (from what)

______

 

Museum notes

Man on bridge: Steven Grant Rogers

Born Brooklyn, July 4th 1918

Captain America

The Howling Commandos: Dum Dum Dugan (not real name), Gabe Jones, James Montgomery Falsworth (Monty? British), Jacques Dernier, me?

James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes: me

Born Brooklyn, March 10th 1917

Sergeant, sniper, killed in action

 

Questions so far

(how old am I)

killed in action?

______

 

Makes sense, “killed in action”. Don’t know who I am, not really. If there was a me that did, he fell off a train years ago.

______

 

Remembered things

Fell off a train at some point (started everything?)

______

 

“Best friends since childhood,” the museum said. 

“I won’t fight you, you’re my friend.”

What did they do to me? I fought him. You don’t do that, not like that, with friends.

______

 

Questions so far

(what’s wrong with me)

 

Answers so far

Too much to write here; would take up too much room.

______

 

The pieces of my memory that I’m remembering best are the ones he’s in. I remember a hazy day—or it’s just hazy in my mind (?) can’t tell—where we’re sitting on something (fire escape?) and watching cats fight in the alley. (Which alley) He’s skinnier in my memory. Still trying for what’s right, though; in my memory he climbs down the fire escape and separates the cats.

I think he gave me the one they were picking on. (Orange?) I think it may’ve been my apartment because he slept on cushions from the couch. I think it must’ve been my apartment. I think it’s real, but I don’t know for sure and I don’t know how to know for sure.

My memories fade in and out. Sometimes it’s him but sometimes, the clearer ones, I’m in a chair and I’ve got something squeezing my face and I can feel myself screaming. 

I like the ones with him best. They’re warmer.

______

 

Status

Hungry (hotdog stand?)

Sleep/sleep less

 

Remembered things

Hotdog stands (something about an island? Cones?)

______

 

My body isn’t used to being awake. I sleep too long. And I sleep best when it’s cold, and I know why. My body isn’t my own. (Hasn’t been for awhile.)

______

 

Priority

Safe house

Food

Water

New clothes?

______

 

It’s nice here. Quiet. Not too far from the Potomac.

They’re out, must be; I’ve been here three days, haven’t seen anyone. It’s a defensive nightmare (too many windows) but there’s no one around, and I like the windows. For the most part. I’m covering them with curtains, so.

The water in the shower is warm and there are scissors under the sink and there’s most of my hair in the trash. It’s against the top of my ears now. Not so neat, but good as I can do. I’ve been sleeping okay. Four hours, usually.

______

 

Remembered things

Something about a tent in the war (kissing?)

______

 

Steve is there in my dreams again and this time he isn’t fighting me. That’s usually what my dreams are, him leaving me pinned by that support and letting the airship fall. It’s what he should have done. It’d be easier than this.

He’s in my dreams tonight and tonight he’s drawing me in that tent and I kiss him and after that it’s all swirled and strange. And it seems like a memory, but it can’t be. It can’t be real.

______

 

Questions so far

Steve—friends? Lovers?

“end of the line”

 

Answers so far

 

______

 

Facts

James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes (Steve calling me Bucky, not just that time on the bridge)

I had a cat

Can feel this in my hands

Steven Grant Rogers

Heart is beating, arm functional

Steve is out there somewhere

Am tired

My name is Bucky.

______

 

They say on the news that he’s in the hospital but gonna pull through. They didn’t say what happened to him, but I know I happened to him.

I should find a new safe house. It’s been a week at least. I can’t stay in the same place this long, not ever again. 

I don’t want to leave. It’s quiet here.

______

 

Equipment

Water bottles

Canned pasta (Boyardee? Pronunciation?)

Backpack

Journal

Shirt and jeans from a closet upstairs

$354.06 American from a drawer in the kitchen (will repay, hopefully; have written down the address)

My tac gear

______

 

I’m making it to Europe. There should be answers there, if I can find them. Or quiet at least. Not sure if I’m ready for Russia yet, but France maybe, or Budapest. Romania if it goes well. I think I’ve wanted to get there for awhile. There’s a memory in my head, me and Steve again, and we’re talking about where we’d go. He said Ireland.

______

 

I knew him. I’ve known him before but they made me forget him. I knew him.

______

 

Someone’s watching me. I don’t know who, and I haven’t seen them yet, but they’re there. It’s HYDRA or SHIELD or what’s left of them. I think maybe the news station said something about SHIELD falling, but HYDRA is out there still somewhere. Must be. Sleeper cells, double agents, someone somewhere. Could be the redhead spy? I remember her, too. Somewhat, anyway. 

Apart from Steve, I mean. I know he’s looking for me. I know it like I know anything, which doesn’t say much really. But I’m sure of that. 

I remember a night around a campfire, and Dernier was talking about a girl named Madeleine (?) and he said she was his everything. 

Well. I don’t know what else happened afterwards, but thinking about it made me feel something in the space between my heart and my skin, like there’s a string and it’s tied to Steve, somehow. He’s looking for me, that’s what that tension’s saying. It doesn’t make sense, not really, but what does?

______

 

Remembered things

I had a cat

And a left arm

HYDRA injecting me the first time

Steve came and broke us out

Steve used to get into a lot of fights

He tried to enlist so many times but couldn’t until Erskine

(Erskine? to look up)

I wanted him to stay home.

______

 

I remember that. The first time he tried to enlist was at a fair? It’s fuzzy but I see people with cotton candy and popcorn and I think it was at a fair. He used to be so small. I could’ve carried him in one hand. Not really, but it felt that way sometimes.

He kept trying and trying to enlist. I didn’t want him to; I remember telling him something about keeping an eye on the city, that he’d be the only eligible bachelor in whole city. He didn’t listen. 

I think I loved him, once. I think that’s why I did, or partly, because he had this idea of a world and tried to make it all right and I wanted to be in that dream. I think I loved him a lot.

Too much has changed. I can’t be sure of anything.

______

 

The air tastes older in France. It’s hard to explain, but it reminds me of nights spent sleepless writing letters. It tastes like paper on my tongue.

They were for him, I remember that. 

I must’ve loved him.

______

 

Remembered things

Fought in the 107th

Love letters (had to have been love letters)

Steve got us out

I liked French cheese

Gabe Dum Dum Jim James Jacques me

Howling Commandos

Brunette woman in a red dress at the bar (British?)

That stupid costume, but I liked it

Warehouse raid(s?) (or factory, or base)

Prepping and being wiped (the process)

Those words

Waking up without my arm

then waking up with a new one

______

 

I couldn’t stay in France long, but maybe someday I’ll be back. I liked it there.

Romania means land travel (I can’t steal another plane) and I’m not going through Germany to get there. Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Romania. That’s the plan.

It feels far away, Romania. I think that’s why, in the Depression, I said Romania. I don’t know why Steve wanted to get to Ireland. He had family there, I think. But otherwise.

______

 

Switzerland’s small enough to drive through in a day so I stole a car and crossed the border a few hours ago. I’m camping out in a warehouse that looks like it’s as full as I feel. It’s windy—a broken window—but it’s out of the way, and really that’s what matters.

The wind’s nice because I don’t think I could ever really sleep without noise. There’s a faint impression of a memory, of when Steve stayed the night, of him snoring and it helped me fall asleep. It’s as real as anything else feels. 

Without noise it feels like cryo again. I won’t go back into that again, if I can help it.

______

 

Priority

Romania

Safe house

Food

Water

Lose the red haired spy

______

 

She started following me today. She’s not trying to be stealthy about it; she gave me a block’s head start when I went to the market, but otherwise. I think she wants me to know she’s there, that if I want to get a message to Steve she’ll carry it.

I don’t know what I’d say. But she hasn’t initiated contact, so I’ll keep my eyes open. I’m not leading her back to my apartment—there are good people in this building, and I know myself—but I’ll show her around, if she wants, before losing her. Budapest is a beautiful city.

______

 

Status

Tired

Mind less fuzzy, somewhat

______

 

They’re saying something on the TV at this gas station about the Avengers fighting in Sokovia, and there’s footage of Steve flying across the screen while a guy with long blond hair (longer than mine) holds up a hammer and lightning splits the sky. They’re saying the city’s floating right now, that they’re nearing the cloud layer and they’re not sure what’s going to happen. Then there’s the spy—Natasha?—and they’re fighting robots? It looks like they’re winning, even with the floating city.

It makes me feel a little better. That there’s something stranger than me out there.

______

 

Bucharest, finally. It’s large enough that I can blend with the general population, even with my hair growing out again. And my arm isn’t as noticeable with long sleeves and a glove.

______

 

Remembered things

“To the end of the line”

Fruit’s good

 

Facts

Plums help reduce memory loss

______

 

There’s a market down the street from my apartment. It’s loud and busy and some people use their elbows too much, but its close, and there’s food.

I started doing odd jobs two weeks ago. First it was fixing a sink, then helping carry a sofa. Most recently it’s been helping build a house. I’m good with the heavy lifting.

It’s…settled. Routine. I'm a little skeptical of routines but I don’t think anyone’s gonna find me here. I don’t know if I want Steve to.

______

 

I know how lucky I’ve been. I know there are people looking for me. I probably shouldn’t be settling here, and yet. There’s something about resting for a little while that’s maybe a little too appealing. 

I’m not dumb. I know how this is going to end; there’s no other ending written for people like me. I’ve put newspapers over the windows just in case. My backpack and journals fit easily under a floorboard and I gave a fake name on the registration papers. I’ve gotten a room that’s an easy angle to the next one, if something happens; I can jump and land and roll and be off in seconds, if I have to. 

But for right now I’m looking for better wallpaper. This space is mine. For the first time in ages, I’ve got something that’s mine. I can’t trust my own mind but at least I can make this place look as I want it to.

______

 

Shopping list

Plums

Meat of some kind (beef?)

Milk

Flour

Eggs

Vanilla (?)

Salt, pepper, more spices (ask for advice)

One new thing (fruit of some kind)

______

 

(I got cupcakes. They’re magical.)

______

 

It just hit me, sitting on the balcony, how much I must have loved him. It’s like having an internal injury; it doesn’t hurt all the time, not at the surface, but move just right and there it is. 

I loved him. I did. There’s a whole life we missed out on, if he felt the same. It aches somewhere down by my stomach, the fact of it. There’s still so much I don’t remember and I feel the emptiness in my mind like it weighs the same as a gun but I know that I loved him and I’m crying a little now. There’s no other word for this other than unfair.

Usually I can ignore the fact that so many possible futures were taken from me, but. I’ll sink into it today, and hopefully that will be the end of it. I’ll make sure it’s the end of it. I’m thinking about him and that something behind my heart goes tight and there’s nothing to be had here but sadness and that’s the beginning and end of everything. The truth of it scrapes something in my chest.

______

 

Facts

It’s late

My head hurts

I loved him once (and now?)

I’ve written “the beginning and end of everything” before (where? when?)

I’m out of plums again

____________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"This doesn't have end in a fight, Buck."_   
>  _"It always ends in a fight."_


	5. All There Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief entry from Steve's journal on the way to Siberia during Captain America: Civil War.

____________

 

Do you think, maybe some day, we’ll have a moment to sit and breathe and talk? I’d settle for anything, really, so long as it’s you and me and we’re together. So long as we’re together, we can do anything, Buck. But I know that it’s a long way off. Tony’s reminded me of that enough times today.

You’re asleep right now, but don’t worry; the jet’s on autopilot. I don’t really need to be in the cockpit at all really but it reminds me of when we died the first time, when you fell and I crashed and we both froze. It reminds me of that and it’s too much right now with everything. I don’t know if I could move even if I wanted to. I feel frozen even this far away from the ice.

I’m hoping that’s something we can do, Buck, that we can figure this out. I don’t know how or what they did—there are theories, Nat’s told me some; I don’t understand all of it—and I don’t know how to undo it, if we can. I’m hoping you’ll be okay with me helping. There’s a lot of dead men right now in this jet and most of them are the memory of who we used to be.

You’re tired of running. Even now you’ve got that crease between your eyebrows and your mouth is set how it does when you’ve got someone to save, the way it did when I was a punk in Brooklyn and you waded into fights after me. Except you’re fighting for yourself now, and that’s something I can tell you think you need to do alone.

“I don’t know if I’m worth all this to you.” Like hell you aren’t. You’re the one who told me, remember? About strings tying us together and destiny and that’s all there is? Well. That’s all there is. You’re all there is and all there’s ever been, probably. Definitely all there’s ever been for me. I just don’t know that you deserve someone as broken as me, is all.

I was about to write, “And you’d say something like ‘you the broken one?’ and you’d punch my arm like you do”, or something like that, but that might not be true anymore. You’re a lot more reserved with your movements now, more planned and tactful even without the Soldier, and every time you’re in a situation with any of us I can tell you’re strategizing ways out. It’s what made you such a good sniper, that analyzation. Finding just the right pressure and speed and movement to keep from hurting anyone.

Because that’s what you were doing and that’s why there’s something we can work with, if you hold onto that. You were your own person even when they had you. You’re your own person now.

Bucky there are so many things I’m sorry for. I don’t know what there is I can do about them, but if you’ll let me, I’ll try to fix them.

I’m sorry that I couldn’t reach you. I think about it all the time. I see it in my dreams, always. My dreams haven’t been that different from my nightmares, since I couldn’t reach you.

I’m sorry I slept on you for 70 years, and then years after that too. Sam told me back before we made it here that there are things I can’t help, that I can’t fix anything by dwelling on what won’t change, but since we saw each other on that road and since you knew me, Bucky, all I’ve been thinking is that if I woke earlier, maybe this would all be different. If I’d been better somehow or thought faster. If SHIELD had found me sooner. Something.

If I’d fallen when you did. I’m sorry for that too, that when I fell into the Potomac you fell after me.

That goddamn night in the tent. I’ll never not be sorry for that. Sorry that I pulled away, sorry that I didn’t kiss you again. Sorry that I didn’t show those drawings that said exactly what I felt back then, the ones where you’re soft in the dawn and the ones where you’re playing with that kitten, the one where you’re worrying your lip and reading, the one where our hands are inches apart where we fell asleep and woke up on the couch cushions.

Because you see I've got an entire history of The Story Of Us, all the sappy details like those ones in my head that never came to be, and there’s not a universe where I’m not sorry for that. The Story Of Us is only ever gonna be those photos that aren’t ever exposed and are lost somewhere in a desk drawer until some later generation finds it, develops it, and always questions why there wasn’t anything. Or those drawings someone will find and glance over and think about for a bit before some sadness makes them put them down.

Bucky I’m worried ours is the kind of story that doesn’t have that kind of soft ending. I don’t know that either of us would trust that ending at this point; there’s been too many lies and too much pain and too much lost time for that ending. We’re not the story that ends neatly, not the way we died and were reborn.

This is so much sadder than I planned, and if you make it out and I don’t (still feels like we’re fighting that war. I don’t know if it’ll ever feel like it’s done), I’m sorry for that, too. I’m trying not to crack but it feels like something deep inside me is starting to crumble and I don’t know what it is yet.

I need to sleep. We’re still some ways away, so I think what I’m going to do is sketch you a little and then wake you up and then take your place in the back. Maybe that’ll help, some sleep.

One thing at a time. I’ll sketch you and wake you up and we’ll stop the other Soldiers, and then Zemo, and then after that you and I are going dancing somewhere near the docks back home. And we’re gonna figure this out, and we’ll kiss and not pull away, if that’s something you still want too, and then, maybe, we can breathe, and The Story Of Us will have an ending that whispers instead of screams.

It’ll be okay. We’re together. If nothing else we’re together at the end of it all, and at the end of it all, that’s all there is.

____________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"He's my friend."_   
>  _"So was I."_


	6. Like You've Crashed Into It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's journal, pre mid-credit scene of Captain America: Civil War.

____________

 

You know, you’re the one who told me I was left handed. 

With HYDRA it never mattered; they gave me a target and weapons and that was it. You’re gonna say that I fought it, that I resisted as much as I could. That on the roof, I could have killed you, and I didn’t. It doesn’t matter. I don’t remember his parents. I don’t remember shooting her. 

If you resist and fail and don’t remember, does it count?

You’ll say, yes. You’ll say, all that matters is that I was in there somewhere, that I tried. That I didn’t kill you, and that’s something.

I’ll say that it’s worse that I was in there. And that I’ve always been weak when it comes to you. I remember that much.

I was saying something when I started this.

Right. The doctor asked me if it hurt, when he shot off my arm. Part of a psych eval, see; the Wakandans aren’t stupid, and I know they gave you one too. Smart, really. Nine words and my body’s lethal.

But he asked about my arm and all I remember is pain and a fuzzy memory, a tearable thing, about you trying to teach me how to draw at some point and at somewhere in time, and I’m holding the pencil in my left hand. And you were the one to remind me, now, that I was left handed. When they gave me the pen to fill the forms, you tried to take it and they asked you why and that’s when you said it.

That’s when I felt it, too. It was like my right hand disappeared. You filled out the form.

______

 

There’s so much happening. I want to go back, Steve. But there’s nothing left for people like me, like us, and that world doesn’t exist anymore.

______

 

We’ve been doing these sessions for awhile now. These sketching and writing ones. It’s maybe not been ‘awhile’ but it’s been once a day for the last three days, since coming here. This is nice for you, I can tell; you’re wearing your artist’s eyes and your eyebrows are creased in the middle, but it’s not a pained crease like when you were flying the plane. You’re concentrating, but concentrating like you’re trying to see me properly.

I wish I knew what you saw when you looked at me. You said you’ve read my file, that the doctors have too and the Avengers as well; you said my journal’s in it, too. The journal I wrote before I died. 

That’s how they knew about the writing being helpful. I’d written it in my letters before everything. I asked you what else my letters said, and you said I wrote that I loved you. You weren’t looking at me when you said it, and I think maybe you were trying to rescue me again because you said you wrote something, too, and you offered to let me read it. “Everyone else has,” is what you said. “It’s only fair.”

What is fairness for people like us? I don’t know that I deserve that from you. And I think I’m a little afraid, too.

I’m afraid that I’ll read something and believe it and it won’t be true anymore, or that I’ll read and not believe because of everything that’s happened. I’m afraid we’ll become a tragedy, or that we already have.

See because I remember little things, like the newspapers in your shoes and that lemon cake we tried and that one time we fought that guy Johnny (I think his name was) outside that restaurant you always liked because they didn’t treat you like you were lesser just because you were smaller. But I’m afraid that this is a big thing, what it is that you’re asking, and they were pretty thorough about twisting the big things away from me.

And it’s just that I know you’re a big thing for me. When I was on my own I remembered that I loved you.

I want to know what you see when you look at me, but I don’t want to know if there was a possibility for us. I don’t want to know how much I’ve lost.

______

 

I’ve been meeting with the psych doctors these last six days. They’re talking about my brain and memories and ways to get them both back in order. I won’t pretend to understand what they’re saying, but I do know you’re always a little anxious standing outside the door. Especially when they have to use needles. They drew my blood today and the string connecting us pulled tight.

That’s one thing I’m sure of. I know you and I are connected somehow. I remembered you. I think I might love you, still. At night, when I see you're sleeping on your side the way I think you used to, that’s when I think I might.

______

 

They’re nicer to me than they should be, you know. They’ve given us a large room and good food, and they’ve given me plums and I know it’s because you mentioned it. You’re nicer than you should be, too. You tried to warn me in Bucharest and I threw you out a window. And when he said the words, that was it, Steve, and you deserve better than me.

The doctor’s talking to me about guilt but he doesn’t seem to realize that it was me in the Soldier. I don’t remember killing anyone, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. “It wasn’t you” only works when it’s the literal meaning.

They were my hands that pulled the trigger. My hand that beat your face bloody. It’s me on those video tapes.

The doctors show me clips of you and me and the Howlies and I’m not looking at me, not really. I’m looking at someone else entirely. Bucky Barnes as he was, he doesn’t exist anymore. I look like the Soldier in those clips, too.

______

 

Eight days now. I think I know what I want to do about everything. I know how you are with me, that you’ll do everything to see that I’m okay, and I know that you won’t go for your friends until you know I’m okay. So I think I know what I want to do. What has to happen.

You’re straining being cooped up here. There’s never been a time when you were okay standing still, not even when we were younger. I have a memory of us at a ball game and you’re bouncing up and down and looking around and memorizing for your sketchbook later. You still act like that, like you feel the same urgency and restlessness you felt back then. You’re trying to hide it from me but I know you wish there were two of you. You never did like unfinished things.

I’m looking at you sketching me and it’s hitting me that you’re not the same either. Should’ve realized it earlier, really. I can’t say I remember much of us before, except for bits and pieces, but there’re some things that are different now. A memory of you coughing your lungs up, laughing at something I said when it takes so much for you to smile now. You, on the cushions from the couch, falling asleep with our hands inches apart. I remember waking up in the night to check that you were breathing. You don’t sleep that easily anymore.

It’s harder to let these kinds of thoughts go, the ones that tell me maybe there was a forever back then, when you’re looking at me while wearing your artist’s face. The one always with the smudge on the chin, the soft but observing eyes. You have strong hands and that’s why they gave you that shield, but you’ve got an artist’s eyes. Pencils and charcoals fit better in your fingers than a gun.

I’m thinking about your hands again and I think there was a time when you were holding my face when I think we both felt the same way, and now you’re looking at me like you’re seeing me. You always have. 

______

 

I can’t sleep

It’s not happening all I see is either snow or darkness and sometimes it’s both and there’s a screaming in my ear

I think it’s me it’s coming out of my throat

I’m sorry, Steve, I have to do this

______

 

I think you thought I was asleep, but if what I’m planning with the doctors works and you’re reading this, I want you to know that I heard you. You mumbled it next to my ear after you kissed the top of my head, and Steve, I love you, too. I’m sure of that much.

______

 

I’m laughing a little helplessly writing this because I’m in love with you, and you love me, but this can’t happen, not right now. There’s still so much we both have to do, before all of this. If there is an all of this.

It can’t be right now if this is going to work. If what the doctors and I have planned is going to work, you can’t know any of this. You won’t go if you do, and you have to go.

______

 

The Wakandans gave us a room with two large beds, but since two nights ago when I crawled into yours, they moved a larger bed into the room and took out both of the individual ones. Still feels a little strange, sleeping with you; part of me remembers wanting this, and I do now, but neither of us is on the verge of dying and I think that’s usually when we shared a bed. 

It’s nice. Your snoring and your arm over my waist and your warmth against my back. You’ve always been the warmest thing in my memory.

______

 

I need to tell you soon. We’ve determined a timeline, and it’s happening in two days. That’s the earliest everything will be ready. But I’m selfish, think I always have been when it comes to you; I want this as long as I can have it. 

I just looked at you sketching me (you’re doing a three-quarter view, I think you said), and you showed me the sketch and Steve, I’m going to cry, because that string in my chest is pulling me toward you so hard and fast that I don’t know what to do. It’s one of those thoughts that I shouldn’t want to have. You’ve done enough, already; bringing me here and every day, always, you do more than enough. 

It’s too much, all of this. I don’t think I’m worth all this to you, I still don’t. So I’ve got to do it. Your teammates need you, and you deserve a better love than me.

______

 

You asked if I was sure and I said yes. You asked again and then another time, and I know you’re trying to understand what I’m thinking; you had that expression on. What I’m feeling is the fact of everything on my chest, of the years we lost and of the times I maybe could’ve kissed you again, and the fact of it all hurts worse than anything they ever did to me. I’m remembering the feeling of being in your arms and having you in mine. We could have lived a life Steve, you and me. 

I think maybe I’d like to kiss you again before going under. I think maybe you’d let me. I think maybe I shouldn’t want to kiss you, especially because I know how you are with me and because you love like you’ve crashed into it. And I know that I’ll be asleep soon, and I won’t be able to catch you this time.

______

 

I just had my psych eval. They’re taking my vitals now and I’d swear you’re on the other side of that glass, because when they started prepping me that string tensed and I think I felt you hold your breath.

I’ve got fifteen minutes before the injection, and then another ten before I have to be in cryo. I think I’m ready. I’m ready for some quiet. 

Maybe that’s not very heroic of me, but you’ve always been the idealist. Except I know that’s cracking now, and it hurts to see how tired you are.

I can see your outline through the frosted glass of the door. I don’t know what I’m going to say to you. I don’t know if I can kiss you; I missed that opportunity a long time ago, I know that now.

This isn’t fair. You and I, we deserve more than this. 

Five minutes now before they’re letting you in. They’ve just asked me what I want to do with this, and I’ve told them it doesn’t matter so long as you don’t end up with it. I can’t do that to you. I don’t want to be another ‘what if’, so maybe the best move is eliminating that possibility. 

You’re gonna try and change my mind, I can tell, and all I know is that I can’t kiss you like this. Maybe someday, if we’ve got one. I’ll let myself hope that we do. If I can think while I’m under, that’s what I’ll think about. 

____________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“You sure about this?”_   
>  _“I can't trust my own mind. So until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head, I think going back under is the best thing. For everybody.”_


	7. Where We Ended

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's journal, post Captain America: Civil War

____________

 

I sent Tony a phone once you were settled. He won’t send me anything, not this soon; it’s still too raw between all of us for that. I wrote him a letter to try and explain but I don’t know that he will, because he doesn’t understand how this feels. He’s not a soldier.

Maybe it’s the serum amplifying everything, but even without that, I’d stop clouds for you. I’d tear down mountains, if it meant you were okay. There’s no doubt in my mind that you’re my dark side. I’d put you above anything, no hesitation, and that’s not what they expect from Captain America but I’m okay with that. I haven’t been Cap in a long time.

Nat texted me for the first time since everything today. She said, “Awake,” and that’s all.

______

 

Sam’s flying the plane. I don’t trust myself, not right now; you can tell by my handwriting, probably, that my hands are shaking. 

Sam’s flying and Wanda’s in the copilot’s seat and Scott’s with his daughter and Clint’s back with his family. They were in that prison for two weeks at the very least. After you decided to go back under, I packed some weapons and darts and asked Nat to pick me up. Turned out she was all but in the prison already; she was in her jet ready to fly to it when I called. She dropped me off and wouldn’t fly away until I swore I’d keep her updated and then after that until I just swore at her. I don’t know where she is now; I heard she’d gone away to Europe for a little while to lie low.

It’s been…it’s been a year and a half. In that time we’ve been trying to establish a base of some sort for Sam, Wanda, and me in order to do what we can to help wherever we’re needed. We’ve been staying close to my old DC apartment to keep an ear to the ground of the politics of everything.

It’s not the smartest in some respects, but I’m pretty sure Tony’s pulling some strings behind the scenes; there’ve been a few times where someone’s posted video of us and the next few minutes it’s been scrubbed clean.

I can’t focus. I hoped this would help. It hasn’t. My mind’s with you and with everything that could’ve gone wrong, Buck. There’s so much that could’ve gone wrong.

But I think more than anything I’m trying not to think about what could’ve gone right. I’m gonna mess this up if I keep thinking about what could’ve gone right. 

It’s not the time for you and me and that’s what I’m worried about. It’s been more than seventy years and we’ve been so many different people since then. But more than that, if it went well and you love me the way you said you did, and we could have something, I’m on the run from the government.  _ You’re _ on the run from governments, plural. 

It’ll be okay someday. It will be. I know it will.

______

 

T’Challa’s not letting us in yet. Not letting me in yet, I should say; Sam and Wanda are in T’Challa’s movie theatre relaxing for the first time in who knows when.

They’re giving me space, and I appreciate it. But I look at how tired they are too and I wonder if they think I’m worth it. If there are days where the desire to be safe pulls stronger than whatever reason they’re staying with me. 

The doctors are finishing up now. T’Challa said they had to unfreeze you two days ago, something about the seal breaking down. They’re not sure where your mind’s at. The air they pumped into your chamber was enriched with some chemical substance designed to stimulate your memories, so hopefully it’s helped.

Memory stimulation and sleep and Nat said something about occasional dream manipulation, in an attempt to try and make your dreams fix your memories. 

I’m trying to distract myself from the fact that you’re in the next room and you’re awake and you know me. The last year and a half have been so much worse than trying to find you the first time; I know exactly where you are but not what’s going on his your head. Used to be I didn’t know either of those things, but knowing where you are has made it so much harder to leave you alone.

Peggy told me once to respect the dignity of your choice, and I’ve tried to. I hope you don’t mind that I’m here.

______

 

You’re here and you heard me and it’s  _ you _ Buck

You’re a hope I never thought to have and it’s  _ you _ Buck

“Bucky, I’m in love with you” is so different to hear aloud rather than written. It’s you, it is, you’re there in that room and you held my hand today and you said my name and I swear it’s like everything’s different now. It’s a whole new Earth, time’s reset just for you.

You know me. You’re tired and hooked up to machines and you know me.

It’s times like this where you’d punch me and tell me to look at the bigger picture, and you’re right—I’ve always been shortsighted when it comes to you—but right now it doesn’t matter. You don’t mind that I’m here. You took my hand and twined our fingers together, and fell asleep again and I am allowed to see your face when you sleep and hold you close like this, and feel you warm on my chest.

Bucky. I could hold the tide in one hand. You’re alive and okay and you know that I love you.

______

 

Sam and Wanda and I talked a little after I woke up in your room. Right now the plan is to stay here and try not to get T’Challa and his people into any trouble. I don’t think anyone’s upset about it; Sam tried to hide it but by now I know that he holds tension in his shoulders, and they’ve been relaxed for the most consecutive time in—I don’t even know how long. And Wanda, curled up in one of the many comfy chairs in our quarters, fell asleep almost immediately after we decided, so.

We can’t stay here forever, that’s the problem. It’s a bitter reminder when I get to see Sam talking shop with mechanics or Wanda practicing her skills in the courtyard, or when I get to see how bright your eyes get just before you kiss me.

I want to see if you’ll come with me, but if not, I’m staying with you. By your side is the only place I know I’ve really belonged. Always has been.

______

 

Sam told me today Nat got in touch with him. She’s been staying in a flat in France, breaking in a few new covers and staying out of reach of the US government. There’s a suspicious amount of movement near the British royal family, she says, and she asked if he and Wanda would join her.

I know what she’s doing; she’s giving me and you space to figure ourselves out. Sam didn’t say anything but I know he knows, and he’s willing to go. They’re heading out tonight.

I don’t deserve Sam Wilson, or Wanda Maximoff, and especially not you. But they don’t seem to think so and neither do you and that’s more than I’m worth.

______

 

You kissed me again. It’s something more than I’d hoped for, you and me in one place, able to touch like this.

______

 

To touch like  _ that, _ actually. It’s more than I’d ever, ever hoped for. To kiss you and to be able to touch like  _ that. _

And last night I dreamed that you were in my arms and then I woke up and you were, and Bucky, I’d do it all over again if it meant this is where we ended.

____________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Buck?"_   
>  _"Mmf."_   
>  _"I love you."_   
>  _"I know."_   
>  _..._   
>  _"C'mon Steve, give me some blankets, you know I love you too."_   
>  _"Jerk."_   
>  _"Punk."_


End file.
